Rescued bonded labourers now setting up their own businesses

Chennai: After receiving a new lease of life, 500 rescued bonded labourers have all begun setting up their own businesses in Odisha, some even receiving awards for being community leaders.

Pinky Kaindi, 26, is a bonded labourer-turned-businesswoman who was rescued from a brick kiln in Tirvallur district in 2016. “I used to work for over 12 to 15 hours a day at the kiln,” Pinky recollects. “Even if we took 10-minute breaks we were beaten up by the owner. I thought my life was ruined,” she adds.

Luckily, Pinky only spent some three months there before she was rescued by the International Justice Mission (IJM) along with 500 others. IJM, as part of their rehabilitation program, puts labourers through vocational training.

Awards were given to five other along with Pinky for resilience that the labourers showed at the time of adversity. They too were rescued from Thiruvallur. For the first time since they were rescued, all of them gathered in Balangir district in Odisha for the award ceremony.

Wearing a bright orange shirt, 27-year-old Jaya Katki stands proudly near his wife and two-year-old child. Jaya is another example of the reach of the rehabilitation programme. His son was in still in his mother's womb when this family was rescued from the kiln in Tiruvallur district.

Pinky and her husband, newly married then, had moved to Tamil Nadu in search of a better life after borrowing '30,000. At the kiln, they were each paid only '100 a week.

“I thought my wife would die,” says Jaya Katki, Pinky's husband. “She was heavily pregnant with our now two-year-old we were not even allowed to go to the hospital for regular check-ups. Even in the latter half of her pregnancy, Pinky was forced to work over 12 hours,” he adds. With the help of loans from government self-help groups, Jaya started a tent business. “I'm going to start my own tailoring unit and hire others,” Pinky says.